FozzieBare: Blog

If you're of a certain age, remember that scene from Saved By the Bell. Yes, THAT SCENE.

I'm so excited.

I'm so excited.

I'm so.. scared.

First of all, oh my god, I was a teenager when that came out, and that clip will be 30 years old next year. That sound you hear is my attempt to be hip turning into a hip replacement.

But seriously, age joke aside. That's how I feel when I look at my stats.

60,000 Downloads for Free Trader Mary's Dream (or will be later today)

1,000 Votes for FTMD.

100,000 Downloads across all my stories.

(Insert record scratch noise, WHHAAAAATTTT?? Sound effect, Looney Tunes double take, etcetera)

Folks, I said a while back that 10K views of FTMD in a week was cause for me to question all of your collective sanity. That was five months and FIFTY THOUSAND DOWNLOADS AGO OF FTMD.

There are no words.

Except two.

THANK. YOU.

Thank you to Bob, my loyal and long-suffering pre-reader, who kept me going with positive feedback when I was banging my head against the theoretical wall trying to get the words to flow. Sometimes, it was very close to banging my head against a LITERAL wall.. none of this metaphysical stuff.

Thank you to all my readers for their feedback (good and bad).

Criticism makes me want to be a better writer. Praise makes me want to write more. Both are the lifeblood of any author, and especially are the beating heart of authors who struggle with self-doubt.

Thank you to the authors of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. For inspiring me, for challenging me, and guiding me.

And Thank you to Alex, Mary, Melissa (amongst others from FTMD), Arin (I promise, I'll stop spelling your name Arun one of these centuries), all the folks you haven't met yet in the Rogue's Rules universe but that I've thought of, Steve and Kaitlyn (First Times), Mike and Dana (It's My Party), James and Veronica (Midnite and Nightwatch), Tony , Andrea and little Dara (You Knew) and of course Matt and Antonia (One on One). Thank you for allowing me to be the conduit to tell your stories to the people here. If the story's suck, it's because of my lack of skill at translating their stories to the printed word.

For those of you who have followed my blog for a while, you know the health issues I've faced. That I continue to face. Right now, I'm writing this at 1:30 AM because one of the side effects of all the health issues is I have reverse circadian rhythm (which means that I'm more active in the middle of the night than the middle of the day. Trust me, it plays merry hell with trying to get ANYTHING done, except writing, I guess).

What does the future hold?

More FTMD

More RR

When I can, One on One chapters.

I want to promise you guys and gals the moon, the stars, and the world.

Instead, I'll say this.

Thank you.

I'll keep it going as long as I can.

Today I went through being poked and prodded. No, I'm not saying I was fucked or fornicated. I'm saying I spent a day with doctors who seemingly wanted 18 gallons of my blood to do billions of tests, so they could rule out every known disease on the face of the earth. (except Lupus, House taught us it's never Lupus)

But, Chapter 13 is in the queue.

I'm hoping to work on RR tonight, and get FTMD 14 started.

Until next time

FB

(Postscript: I still hope Fidelem mortis Imperium is not horrible latin. No one speaks it these days, but should you use it, all of a sudden, everyone's a latin expert. For example, the phrase illegitimi non carborundum. (supposedly meaning Don't Let the Bastards wear you down). I have said that to four different friends, each time someone had to poke their head in and say "You know that's not a real Latin phrase")

God, I feel like a gambler at the table who's had bad luck forever and now is on a streak of wins. KEEP ROLLING THEM BONES..

So, this takes place from Mary's Point of View.

Chapter 13 is apparently NOT an unlucky number, it's already off tot he pre-readers.

When it rains, it pours.

I'm glad that's talking about my muse, and not my health for once.

Chapter 12 is out at the pre-readers. This returns the story to Mary's Point of View, as she goes through the results of the last chapter, and things get escalated to the point that she may not be safe, even in her own home. (or in Mary's case, in her House's tower suite high above the ground).

If all goes well, you'll see it in the next day or two.

I don't know how it's happened. I just want it to continue.

A while ago, I said that I didn't want to waste people's time with sub-standard work. I don't think that it's sub-standard. That's why I am hitting post on Chapter 11.

However, I felt the content probably needed a blog post because, well, up to now, Free Trader Mary's Dream has been.. for lack of a better word, a bit more light and fluffy, tone wise. Not that horrible things are not discussed, but in the end, there is always a way for heroes to win through.

That is DEFINITELY not the theme of Chapter 11. It is dark, dissonant, and almost nihilist in a way. It features a character resourceful enough in his way to have been a hero under other circumstances. He was trapped by a choice he made without knowing the true cost of what he had done, and the spiral that followed.

It came down to doing the things he needed to stay alive and useful to a Universe. And then what happens when one cannot live with what they have done to take that Universe and change it utterly.

This is NOT going to be how the rest of the series operates. Trust me on that. What it is, is a reminder that no system is perfect. There are people out there who will exploit your Cause to further their unrelated cause. or even use your cause to promote their inherently inimical cause at the expense of yours

There's a saying widely attributed to Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that good men do nothing".

In short, I wanted this chapter to say that "yes, there are people that are disadvantaged by the system. That yearn to change the system. They may fall to evil, because in their case, good men did nothing." Tomas falls into that category.

No system is perfect.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep striving for it.

edit: A TL'DR summary: This chapter is very dark, true. But that is to highlight the light in the other chapters.